Stranger Things’ new season comes out in three parts: Volume 1 on November 26, 2025; Volume 2 on Christmas Day, 2025; and the series finale on New Year’s Eve at 5:00 p.m. on Netflix. After how much was shown in the series and how long each episode was, you may not remember much of the storylines except for the big ones. But we don’t know if these seemingly unimportant storylines may have more meaning in the next season.
Stranger Things | The First 8 Minutes – Series Opener | Netflix
Season One starts with a group of kids playing Dungeons & Dragons in one of their basements. Will Byers’ character in the game is seemingly killed or incapacitated by the Demogorgon, but Karen Wheeler, one of the kids’ moms, decides it’s time for the group to go home. Byers takes the turn for his house, but an unknown creature appears in front of him.
He gets taken to an alternate world called the Upside Down, where he is trapped. The scene then cuts to a girl, seemingly in a prison, referred to as Eleven, who escapes from the prison and is alone in the woods until the boys find her, make friends with her, and hide her in Mike’s basement. However, Eleven is unable to communicate. The boys continue trying to look for Will until one day, they go to a lake and see a crime scene. Supposedly, they found Will dead in the lake, which leaves the boys severely depressed. But Will’s mom, Joyce, does not think her son is dead. She sets up Christmas lights for Will to communicate, and they blink for help. Will’s brother Jonathan gets mad at Joyce, saying she is crazy and begging her to just mourn Will instead. Cutting back to the group of boys, they learned that Eleven has superpowers and can “Sense” Or feel their friend will in the alternate universe so they go to the school and try to communicate with him through radio until on the way there they see a monster that they call the Demegorgen but in a big drawn out fight eleven eventually defeats the monster but seemingly sacrifices her life doing so By doing this they have access to the upside down getting in and saving will. However, at the end of the season will cough something up, seemingly showing the threat is not over.
Season Two
It’s Halloween in Hawkins when Stranger Things season two starts. A year has passed since the last season. In the first episode, we are introduced to Max Mayfield, a new love interest for Dustin and Lucas. Everyone is trying to forget about what happened in season one. all seem to except for Will, who has never been the same since having flashes of a creature he never saw. But he tells his mother and his friends about these odd visions, and they go into a nearby laboratory to try to get professional help, not knowing this is where Eleven was raised. It then cuts to Eleven, showing her a little older with hair being raised by the police chief Jim Hopper. Back to the lab, Will does not trust the scientists in the slightest, causing them instead to go to an old friend of Joyce’s, Murray Bauman. The initial diagnosis is that Will is having post-traumatic flashbacks of his time in the Upside Down. One second, he’s hanging out with his friends or his family, and the next second, he’s in the Upside Down. The episodes get progressively longer and more terrifying as Will starts seeing a multilimbed shadow monster every time he envisions the other dimension. Joyce realizes that Will’s episodes may not be flashbacks at all when she watches footage of him trick-or-treating with his friends and spots the shadow monster Will has been drawing imprinted on the footage. She rushes to the school to find Will, but he’s already in the midst of another episode when she arrives. But this time is different. They are able to get him to wake up, but he’s acting weird. He’s always really hot. He is not one with the shadow monster dubbed the “Mindflayer” He draws the mindflayer to try and help This makes jim hopper the police chief to realize its connected to the rotting vegetation in the outer parts of hawking meanwhile when hopper is understanding this eleven is running away from home going to find his mother and her long lost sister who also has powers it doesn’t take long for her to return to home making one of the most confusing episodes of the show as her mom and sister aren’t ever mentioned again Maybe in season 5? Meanwhile, in Hawkins, they are trying to figure out how to help Will, but it’s hard as the mindflayer is in him, and Eleven shows up helping them figure out the upside down is accessed through a gate in the lab, but how do you close it to stop it outright? Eleven could, but it would take almost all her energy and possibly kill her. They go there to try and find a different way, but Eleven has already decided she’s going to risk it, and that’s what she does, causing her to pass out, leaving it ambiguous if she died or not. Hawkins and the Upside Down remain in separate dimensions for now, but that will not remain the case. The closing scene of the season is a shot of the Hawkins Middle School gym in the Upsi\de Down.
Season Three
Stranger Things 3 | Summer in Hawkins | Netflix
One year later since season three there is a new mall causing small businesses to shut down mike and eleven are now dating dustin also has a girlfriend however she is in california the other boys dont believe that she even exists his girlfriend finds a secret russian transmission with dustin and we see will at home with goosebumps covering his neck maybe sensing that the mindflayer is still alive after this we see billy max’s stepbrother have a late night conversation with karen wheeler mikes mom on his way to a hotel his car breaks down and he is kidnapped by a mysterious figure and dragged inside a mill overnight in the morning billy is released from the mill with strange visions and voices in his head he kidnaps his fellow lifeguard and she ends up acting the same way meanwhile eleven mike lucas and mike are at the starcourt mall eleven breaks up with mike in a big dramatic moment dustin is hanging out with his mentor steve and they figure out the russian transmission seeing its a code later that night they stalk the mall and see armed soldiers dropping off a package from the tuck while billy is getting more people to be almost hypnitized by the mind flayer and will senses and find out that the mind flayer is back through billy they try their best to get rid of him by putting him in a sauna hoping it would take the mindflayer out of him. It didn’t, and he is still possessed. Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Erica arrive in a Russian lab underneath Starcourt, and Steve and Robin catch them. Dustin and Erica rescue them quickly, but they run into the Mind Flayer. And Eleven shows up and incapacitates them until she passes out and finds she can’t use her powers anymore. Hopper gets captured by the Russians and seemingly dies.
Season four
Stranger Things 4 | Volume 1 Final Trailer | Netflix
Stranger Things 4 | Volume 2 Trailer | Netflix
The season starts with a flashback to 1979 where dr brenner is experimenting on children with superpowers when a mysterious incident kills all of the children except eleven it then cuts to 1986 eight months after the incident at starcourt jonathan will and eleven have moved to california and eleven has no powers which is really messing with he remind joyce gets a doll in the mail presumingly from russia saying that hopper is alive the other boys in hawkins have a new friend eddie munson because they join his dungeons and dragons club after school Chrissy Cunningham a cheerleader is haunted by visions of her abusive mother and an odd grandfather clock. While trying to fix these visions, she tries to get rid of them by buying drugs from Eddie. Chrissy is possessed and killed in Eddie’s trailer, causing him to run away. The next morning, Mike flies to California to visit eleven now known as Jane, where Jane is bullied by her classmate Angelica when Jane hits her with a roller skate. In hawkins max tells dustin she saw eddie run from her trailer the night she died while investigating for her local newspaper nancy wheeler mikes sister talks to eddies uncle who says he thinks it is victor creel a notorious killer who killed all of his family except hes locked up in california eleven is locked up for assaulting angelica but is taken by the new head of the lab owens who is trying to get elevens power back to defeat the monster that killed crissy meanwhile nancy is reassuring victor finding out about a demon that they dub “Vecna” Max is now seeing the grandfather clock that he learned about before believing she is Vecna’s next target nancy and steves friend robin interview victor creel which describes his family being murdered in the same way crissy was they determine this was vecna and the way to not die is listening to music they play maxes favorite song in her headphones constantly to stop her from dying but she goes to Billy’s grave reading a note until she starts floating the group watching from the car quickly turns on her music making it so she can escape but also learn alot about vecna because she is in his mind after this dustin and steve find eddie and bring him food keeping him alive and hiding him from the cops being there after the rest of the group comes they use a compass but oddly it points to the lake this causes steve to jump in and they all come in after them this doesnent come out to anything however and they come back out in california eleven gains her powers back and goes into hawkins the group finds out he needs 4 vessels he already has three so he only needs max and he can do something they dont want to find out Joyce goes to russia to save hopper and succeeds and they end up in the upside down seeing the mind flayer for the first time in the season conforming it is still alive and everything in the upside down is controlled by vecna The group goes to the creel house while steve nancy and robin go to the upside down to hurt venca while hes trying to attach the other group as dustin and eddie draw away the bat like creatures that they saw before eddie sacrificing himself in the process eleven gets into maxs mind and fights venca from there but venca overpowers her and puts max in a vegetative state causing the town to fall apart at the seams and that is where the season ends.
What you should be expecting: A character by character prediction:
Stranger Things 5 | Official Trailer | Netflix
At the beginning of each season, the group is always playing Dungeons and Dragons, which most of the time is foreshadowing, and in this dnd(Short for Dungeons and Dragons session,they end up defeating Vecna however, he comes back with one eye and one arm, not dead however the group still defats him half of them dying in the process. This may not mean half of them die because in other dnd sessions it says they die and they don’t but it may be different. Still expect a lot of death in this new season.A lot o people say Eddie Munson is going to come back, but it is not likely. He may not be dead as we never saw him die, and he was on the poster for Stranger Things Season 5, but his injuries could easily kill him. Each episode is going to be very long, around 2 hours each, for a span of roughly 8-10 episodes, so a lot is going to happen.
Max is likely not going to be dead, just in a vegetative state, much like Victor Creel or worse, she may be braindead; however, I think Lucas is going to have a lot in this story because he hasn’t had a big storyline since Season 2.
Steve is a very easy target to kill in this story but I do not know if they would kill off two of Dustin’s mentors. In this sense, it makes more sense to kill off Robin who is very prominent in the story and is very big around Steve
There is a very big chance that Eleven’s sister or other siblings have a big role. There have been a few interviews done on the actors of the characters which reveal a bit about them,
David Harbour said, “I think the Duffers have always had a very strong connection to the audience and what the audience wants to see, in terms of pairings or what they want. There are a lot of relationships that they know they need to tie up, and I think they’re doing a very good job at that.”.”
I think it’ll be very satisfying when you see it. I don’t want to say too much. I feel I’ve already said too much, but I think you’ll be very satisfied when you watch it,”Harbor said.
And Finn Wolfhard, who plays Michael Wheeler, said” Every character has a relieving ending that matches their story arc.”
The other thing we know is episode names they are Episode 1: The Crawl Episode 2: “The vanishing of…byers”(The full episode title will be revealed when it releases) Episode 3: ”The Turnbow Trap” Episode 4: “Sorcerer Episode 5” Shock jock” Episode 6: “Escape from Camazots” Episode 7:” The bridge episode” 8:” the rightside up” After the last season there will be a few other stranger things media released like the stranger things the first shadow play production and an animated show which name hasn’t been revealed The trailer for the 5th season released 10-30-25 .
